What do you think is the number one factor that determines a high-performing workplace? A great coffee machine? High rates of pay? The threat of redundancy hanging over everyone's heads? Some recent research by the Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, found it was simply the quality of the leadership.

People in leadership roles have the latitude to decide who they want to work with. That's one of the perks. We spend significant numbers of hours each day; creating companies, building things, driving change and hopefully improving the world. Why not spend it with people that are great to be around?

Technological disruption is driving a wave of change so great that the World Economic Forum has termed it the fourth industrial revolution. How we work and live is fundamentally changing. We live in what is now commonly referred to as a VUCA world - volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous.

Almost every leadership, strategy and motivation book on the planet advocates the importance of having a crystal clear goal or vision for the future. However, this is an incredibly flawed position to take.

What we believe about ourselves, our situation and our world drives our thoughts and actions, and therefore has a huge impact on the results we achieve. While this is a profound fact for us as individuals, as a leader, those beliefs (and the resulting thoughts, actions and results) have a significant impact on many others too.

All of us live every day in the pull of two significant forces. These forces influence our thinking, our behaviours and our performance. They affect our relationships and our sense of achievement. They affect and quickly become an expression of our leadership.

Any discussion of great leaders will include the cliché that the best leaders lead by example. Stated in conversation, everyone will nod and agree. And if you are reflecting personally on the attributes of those you have willingly followed, you will find that common trait too. It seems there is little doubt that we influence others through our actions, especially when we are in a leadership role.

Are you clear about your business vision, direction and goals? Is fear, second guessing and over analysis holding you back from taking action for your business? Do you wish you could regain control of your business?

There are so many things leaders are supposed to do that it can feel overwhelming. You're supposed to be a strategist, a coach, a visionary, a communicator, a general, a motivator, a networker... the list is endless! The reality is that no one can be everything a leader is supposed to be. And there’ll always be something else we discover leaders should be doing.

Leaders and leadership are not the same thing, even though the two terms are often used interchangeably. In order for your organisation to grow, you need both. So what is leadership, why does it matter and how do you help the people who run your organisation to develop this important skill set?

Referral marketing leads to few - if any - overnight success stories. In fact, the most crucial part is building relationships, which takes a lot of time and effort. However, when you've taken the time to build the right referral relationships with the right people, and you are able to understand each of their behavioral styles, these long-term relationships will be a huge part of your referral marketing business.

It’s interesting to think about the often implicit associations between leading others, and behaviours like forcefulness, outspokenness, openness and gregariousness. In fact, such behaviours - each of which is undeniably positive and necessary in certain situations - can too easily be mistaken for ‘leadership’. But more than this, they can also block some of the important things leaders are responsible for - such as harnessing teamwork, and encouraging creativity and critical thinking.

For years, our vocabulary has equated a leader with such concepts as - the boss, the guy at the top, the big cheese, or the big wheel. And none of those terms have been very flattering. Perhaps the terms have been unflattering because, all too often, the leader's behaviour was nothing to brag about. After all, the terms implied that they ran the show and everybody else had to bow to their wishes.